FTA:"Not only does throwing a kid in detention often reduce the chance that he or she will graduate high school, but it also raises the chance that the youth will commit more crimes later on in life."

Well, our for-profit prison systems need plenty of people to lock up so they can make money, don't they? You wouldn't want some corporate executive to not get his lion's share of your tax money, would you? Think of all the people who wouldn't get a paycheck if we actually rehabilitated people instead of sending them through the revolving-door prison system.

lets just throw everyone into one giant open air, unregulated prison. how about Death Valley? we can isolate it easy enough. put in some basic infrastructure, like wells or whatever. wall it off, then take all our undesirables and throw 'em into the prison. once you go in, you don't get out. inside - anything goes. no rules, save you stay inside 'till you die. we can throw in men, women, kids, political prisoners, damn near anyone we want. just air drop supplies in on a random pattern at regular intervals.

Legalize drugs. Bring back the swift death penalty for them as deserve it. Hold prosecutors accountable to draconian standards of conduct that put their life and the well being of their family in jeopardy in the event they wrongfully convict someone. Do away with sex offender registries. Make it illegal for a traffic violation ticket to monetarily benefit the state where it was issued.

Weaver95:lets just throw everyone into one giant open air, unregulated prison. how about Death Valley? we can isolate it easy enough. put in some basic infrastructure, like wells or whatever. wall it off, then take all our undesirables and throw 'em into the prison. once you go in, you don't get out. inside - anything goes. no rules, save you stay inside 'till you die. we can throw in men, women, kids, political prisoners, damn near anyone we want. just air drop supplies in on a random pattern at regular intervals.

The good news is, once we do that, we can just find some one eyed, long haired miscreant to haul folks out when things go FUBAR. THIS is a perfect plan!

hubiestubert:Weaver95: lets just throw everyone into one giant open air, unregulated prison. how about Death Valley? we can isolate it easy enough. put in some basic infrastructure, like wells or whatever. wall it off, then take all our undesirables and throw 'em into the prison. once you go in, you don't get out. inside - anything goes. no rules, save you stay inside 'till you die. we can throw in men, women, kids, political prisoners, damn near anyone we want. just air drop supplies in on a random pattern at regular intervals.

The good news is, once we do that, we can just find some one eyed, long haired miscreant to haul folks out when things go FUBAR. THIS is a perfect plan!

Let's fix it. There's a piece of legislation before Congress that should be a bipartisan measure that's going to come up for a push soon. The Youth PROMISE Act, which would invest in programs, chosen by local communities, that are proven to reduce youth violence, with the funding structured to encourage communities to take the savings from their corrections and police budgets and reinvest them in those same successful programs. Call your Representatives and ask them to support it. It saves money, is controlled at the community level, and reduces crime. Everybody wins.

cptjeff:Let's fix it. There's a piece of legislation before Congress that should be a bipartisan measure that's going to come up for a push soon. The Youth PROMISE Act, which would invest in programs, chosen by local communities, that are proven to reduce youth violence, with the funding structured to encourage communities to take the savings from their corrections and police budgets and reinvest them in those same successful programs. Call your Representatives and ask them to support it. It saves money, is controlled at the community level, and reduces crime. Everybody wins.

cptjeff:Let's fix it. There's a piece of legislation before Congress that should be a bipartisan measure that's going to come up for a push soon. The Youth PROMISE Act, which would invest in programs, chosen by local communities, that are proven to reduce youth violence, with the funding structured to encourage communities to take the savings from their corrections and police budgets and reinvest them in those same successful programs. Call your Representatives and ask them to support it. It saves money, is controlled at the community level, and reduces crime. Everybody wins.

One or two percent of humans are good-for-nothing sociopaths.The sooner we identify them and lock them up the better for everyone.If other nations can't afford to lock up their scumbags that is their problem, not ours.

minoridiot:Has anyone considered beating their butts? I know it's a crazy idea, but it might be an alternative to detention.

Sometimes in my colder, darker moments I wonder if 5-10 lashes, Indonesian style, might not be better. Certainly would be cheaper.

I'm sure jail is a rotten place to spend time, but I bet if I hit my girlfriend a few times and then, following due process, felt the skin on my back get split open, I'd remember THAT, too, and think, Hey, I'd better not hit my girlfriend anymore.

give me doughnuts:Repeal ridiculous criminal and sentencing laws related to possession of marijuana, and the rate of incarceration will go down.

No state incarcerates first time marijuana users that have otherwise clean criminal histories. At least not for any meaningful period of time. Second convictions won't get you any real time either. If you get busted three times, well you are just a farkup and bad at making decisions.

PacManDreaming:FTA: "Not only does throwing a kid in detention often reduce the chance that he or she will graduate high school, but it also raises the chance that the youth will commit more crimes later on in life."

Well, our for-profit prison systems need plenty of people to lock up so they can make money, don't they? You wouldn't want some corporate executive to not get his lion's share of your tax money, would you? Think of all the people who wouldn't get a paycheck if we actually rehabilitated people instead of sending them through the revolving-door prison system.

It's not just the for-profit systems.

In California, it's a giant make-work program for unionized public servants.

wesmon:Mock26: Dear Author, the United States also has a hell of a lot more people than all other developed nations. With that being said, what are the per capita comparisons to all the other countries?

Mock26:Dear Author, the United States also has a hell of a lot more people than all other developed nations. With that being said, what are the per capita comparisons to all the other countries?

We're still number 1.

This is part of the reason why I laugh at the people getting their panties in a twist over the NSA. We've been in a police state for longer than a lot of people on Fark have been alive, and you're worried NOW?

Yeah, that's the root of the problem and not a privately run prison system worth $70 billion dollars a year.

[upload.wikimedia.org image 713x499]

The for-profit prisons didn't come into existence until AFTER the SRA. It was the "war on drugs" and the increase in prison inmates, and the concurrent drop in state funding to state prisons and overcrowding, that led to the need for more cheaply run prisons. Which led to the profit motive, which led to the need for more prisoners...it's a cycle, not a straight-line progression.

Then there was the so-called "superpredator" theory of the late 1980's, which caused that big uptick in juvenile incarceration in the late 80's and early 90's. Under that awful theory, advanced by idiot John DiIulio, kids were becoming more amoral, criminally inclined, and violent, and needed to be treated more harshly even than adults lest they become supercriminals later in life and kill the planet. So you had cases where a 16-year old getaway driver in a botched gas station robbery got 31 years without parole because he was adjudged a "superpredator". That took a few years to settle down.

Today, of course, any time anyone suggests lighter sentences, relaxed parole, anything like that, there are people, some of them right here on Fark, who will say things like "Maybe you should let them (sex offenders, murderers, homeless) live in your house while they're being rehabilitated)" as if there was no middle ground between more enlightened penal policies and just letting killers wander the street. It's that mentality that keeps prisons getting fuller and fuller, even as there is less and less room (and less and less reason) for all those inmates.

So you're telling me that the nation that incarcerates more adults per capita than any other nation on earth also incarcerates more children than any other nation on earth? That makes no sense at all. I don't believe you.

Don't give people citizenship until they're old enough to vote and NEVER seal their records but let them file lawsuits against people who hold their childhood records against them for a maximum of one year's wages.

illegal.tender:Define "bad idea". It creates a permanent underclass that cannot vote, and which is forced to do the bidding of the ruling class.

Sounds like a good idea to me!

This, SO MUCH THIS. You saved me from having to type the same thing almost word for word. I'll add on that the permanent underclass is needed to maintain the explosive wealth growth of the super duper rich. And we need the rich to um... er... uh... keep all of the money safe from us riff raffs.

So it costs like $70-90 a day to house a non violent drug offender. Give me a pothead or two and a cattle prod, I'll keep them under detention for the low low price of $100/day. I can quit my job, the system saves money, everyone's a winner!

/They can keep the crackheads/heroin junkies. Too much trouble.//I'm kinda a pothead, but armed with a cattle prod and $$ incentive, I'll make sure their piss tests come back clean.